A Thousand Words in Resolution
by Circular Infinity
Summary: Ten onehundred word drabbles of Fakir as he discovers his power and his strength.  Postseries.  Hints of FakirAhiru.  Completed oneshot.


Name: A Thousand Words in Resolution  
Series: Princess Tutu, animeverse  
Summary: Ten one-hundred word drabbles of Fakir as he discovers his power and his strength. Post-series.  
Characters: Fakir with appearances by Ahiru and Autor. A bit of Fakir/Ahiru.  
Category: General/Romance  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: The entire anime series.  
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Princess Tutu. This is intended for fun and in no way intended for profit. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.  
Author's Note: While I don't usually like to use Japanese words, I decided to keep the Japanese for Ahiru. I know people have used this format before me, which makes me not all that original, but I did think of it before seeing the other fics... Hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

_A Thousand Words in Resolution_

_eins_.

Whenever he dreams of her she's always a girl. Sometimes they're in the library and she peers over his shoulder and asks what he's reading. Sometimes they're dancing their first pas de deux together again, the way it should have been danced.

And sometimes she puts her hands on his face and kisses him. It's the sweetest thing and his heart fills to the point of breaking. He feels it crack and shatter and he takes a piece and holds it out to her.

"Please. It's been yours anyway."

She reaches, but he always wakes before she can touch it.

---

_zwei_.

Some days it's too much, so he holds her and strokes her back and whispers into her feathers, "I don't want to lose you anymore than I already have."

Her answering quack is low, almost sad.

_You haven't lost me at all_, he wants her to have said, but she could've easily have meant, _I feel like I'm losing you_ _too_, or_ I forgive you for not turning me back_ or, most horribly, _I don't understand you anymore, Fakir_.

He loves her, but he could never save her. This time, he can't even give her the strength to save herself.

---

_drei_.

"Stop being so timid," Autor says harshly as he reads Fakir's latest piece.

"I'm not," Fakir objects.

"Whenever you come close to any emotion you shy away."

"I won't write tragedies."

"Just in case they come to life?" Autor tosses the pages down with disgust. "You have no reason to be coward. These never would. Dosselmeyer - "

"Was twisted. Stories shouldn't tear you in two!"

"Yes they should!" Autor shouts. "You have to let your writing be something other than saccharine little packets. Until you do, you'll never write anything great. Or real. And you'll certainly never change _her_."

---

_vier_.

If Fakir has one great fear, one he holds to himself, it's that if eventually he does manage to write a true story about her again it'll go wrong and she won't be a girl at all.

He tries not to let this rule him, but there's so much on the line and too much to lose. He believes in her strength, but not his own.

Not yet.

Someday he'll do it. When he's more confident and understands this power. He'd risk himself in a second, but not her. He can't help but worry that that's where his weakness lies.

---

_fünf_.

He watches her and more and more he knows. He can't leave her trapped in between, neither a girl nor a duck and now not a princess. He was a knight once, more hers than anyone's in the end. He must help her. And he cannot fail.

Not this time.

The change shows in his writing. His prose begins to speak of loss and longing, pride and forgiveness, friendship and something embarrassingly like desire.

His pen pours out emotion with the ink and for the first time he thinks that maybe he can write a story that will save her.

---

_sechs_.

The headmaster visits, wanting to know when Fakir's coming back to school and is startled when Fakir tells him that he won't be. When the headmaster asks what he'll do instead Fakir hands him a story.

As the headmaster reads, Ahiru quacks softly, giving Fakir a look that says, _You should dance if you want to_. Or so he imagines.

_I don't_, he tries to tell her, picking her up. She nestles closer in the crook of his arm.

"Your dancing held strength, but this holds beauty. Please," the headmaster says as he hands the pages back. "Be a writer."

---

_sieben_.

When he finally does start the story is comes relatively easily. He writes without pause knowing that he needs to finish this story and not just for her.

It's tragic and it hurts, but it means something. It also holds resolution and peace promises of something new.

She becomes a girl with the sunset and dances through the garden with delight in the white dress he brought for her months ago. Her dance is grace and beauty and freedom and as he watches something powerful fills him, half relief, half unidentifiable and he thinks he feels something in him break.

---

_acht_.

When, at sunrise, she becomes a duck his chest tightens and he tries very hard not to cry. She looks up at him, quacking in distress and he can see her tears. Whether it's because of his failure or his sadness, he can't tell.

Ducks don't cry. Girls do and that's what she should be.

That afternoon he falls asleep without managing a word, pen still in his hand and ink becoming a blotch on the page.

With sunset she's a girl again and he aches with the knowledge that while he may have failed, this time it wasn't completely.

---

_neun_.

So the pattern is this: duck from sunup to sundown, girl through the night. Fakir scourers every bit of prose he's ever written about her and can find no reason for this.

"I don't mind," she says.

"Girl for a little bit is better than not at all," she says, but Fakir can see the resignation in her eyes every morning as dawn nears.

She's fought so hard for other's happiness. He won't betray her by not doing the same for her and tells her as much.

Unexpectedly she hugs him, whispering into the cotton of his shirt, "Thank you."

---

_zehn_.

Fakir begins a new story. This one is simple, no heart-shattering realizations or poetic emotions. She's been a girl at heart for years now. All he has to do is show it.

The going is slow because he can manage few words of truth each day. As the story progresses she stays a girl longer and longer, by minutes and then hours until one day it's sunset and she's been human the whole day.

Suddenly she's sobbing with relief and joy and she holds out her arms to him. It is indeed the sweetest thing but, this time, nothing breaks.

_Fin_

Thoughts? Comments? Criticism? Favorite lines? Love to get reviews.


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